Smoked Pork Shoulder

This past Saturday Brandon and I, went out in search of something to occupy our day. Upon consulting with the food gods, we concluded that a smoked pork shoulder was best for their sacrifice.

A quick trip to the mexican market, and we were primed with fresh pork at a wonderfully cheap price. One of the things that I have learned in my travels is that immigrant communities have great food. Often times these various ethnic groups bring techniques, taste's, spices and ingredients from their native lands. They also tend to start off relatively poor, and subsequently the cost of feeding their generally larger families becomes an increasingly challenging task. High quality, affordable prices, and a grand variety is generally what I find when I end up in these markets. I've always joked at the thought of there being a "white people" price. However, I have never found concrete evidence on this. My father taught me that some of the best places to eat are where the cabbie's eat, not the tourists. Good food doesn't have to cost a lot, you just have to know where to go.

We chose to smoke out pork in hickory. Hickory is not a WOW wood, like cherry, apple or pear wood. Hickory offer's a nice balanced, concretely "smoked" flavor.

I choose to smoke in a much more traditional manner, with wood and charcoal. I use an all natural, wood charcoal, a few split logs, and hickory chips when I smoke foods.

These are all equally important. The natural charcoal, offer's a nice, consistent heat, which is free from glue's and chemicals. The logs, help to better regulate heat, as well as help with the effectiveness of the smoke. Lastly, the hickory chips, which is the foundation of the entire process. Wood chips need to be soaked in water prior to use. Otherwise, they burn at too rapidly of a rate, and the length of smoke is shortened drastically.

The smoker that I use, is a 15 year old, Home Depot special, that my father purchased when I was a kid. I still remember putting that together, and the curiousity we both had with the 6 extra pieces we had left over.

At one point, it had a propane attachment, for smoking or grilling, but that exploded at one point, and rendered useless. Now, it's a charcoal smoker and a damn fine one at that.

Back to pork.

The first thing that we did was dry off the shoulder. I then score the skin in a cross hatch, and pack the exterior with a dry spice rub, that I had made. More or less consisting, of paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, chili powder and cayenne pepper. I allow my shoulder to sit out side for no less then one hour. This is for two reasons. One. Smoke adheres to fat, forming a proper pelicle on the exterior of the meat is important, for achieving adequate smoke flavor. Two. Meat is refrigerated, and when you introduce a cold piece of meat, to a hot environment, the protein strands which make up that meat seize, leech out much more moisture resulting, in tough, dry meat.

While my meat is sitting out, I get a good hot fire going in the smoker. I want a good bed of coals by which to add my wet chips to in order to cause smoke. Most smoker's have thermometer's either built in or close by. But like, I said my smoker has been through a lot, and no longer has a working thermometer. A couple thousand pounds of meat later, my smoker and I are good friends. When my meat is around room temperature, I add the bowl of water to the smoker, fit in the rack's and put my meat in. 7-8 hours from now, dinner is going to be wonderful.

The fundamental principle in smoking is low and slow. I want to maintain a relatively moist, 250 - 275 degree heat to my meat. I'll do this, by watching my coals, maintaining an adequate amount of charcoal, wood and chips. I choose to add charcoal in smaller batches more often, and constantly maintain a log in the fire. I make sure that I have relatively constant smoke for at least 6 of those 8 hours of cooking. I know that my shoulder is done, when the meat begins to fall off the bone, ever so slightly. It's perfect, when I grab the shank, and it barely cracks away from the meat.

It was a great day of friends, food and cheap beer. One which we hope the food gods will bless us with again soon.